


Only Right

by Rainbow_squirrels_7



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, minor torture description
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 04:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7028188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainbow_squirrels_7/pseuds/Rainbow_squirrels_7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quiet night in the laboratory, where events are reflected upon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Right

**Author's Note:**

> a one-shot fanfic written not long after the release of Age of Ultron. The prompt I originally gave myself was Laughter, but it devolved over time.

 

ONLY RIGHT

 

It sounds like a bark.

Cutting through the still, thick air, only for a second.

It should have been familiar, but he hasn't heard it in so long.

Pietro Maximoff realizes that what he hears is _laughter._

"What?" he says to his sister.

He looks at her, the moment of happiness already starting to fade as quickly as it had arrived.

"I have just remembered," Wanda starts. She is speaking English, like the scientists taught them. Pietro knows that she doesn't have to. They are alone, for the moment.

It is a small time of quiet. It won't last long; even through the night, there is not often a time where no one else present.

"You were _laughing,"_ Pietro forgets the English for the last word, he says it in their native tongue. "What is funny?"

"I remembered what day it is today," Wanda continues, not fully finishing the thought. She likes to have her brother guess what she's saying.

Wanda was good at guessing what her brother was going to say. She always had been, Pietro realizes, but it's different now. Everything was different now.

They are sitting on the concrete, in Wanda's room. No, _cell_ is the word, Pietro thinks. Their cells are never called that by name, but he doesn't fool himself.

There is a glass wall a few feet away, and Pietro leans forward to look through it, past his sister. It is dark in the room beyond, with the sparse light glinting off different odds and ends of metals. Pietro doesn't know what time it is. He could ask Wanda, she might be able to find out, but he doesn't need to know. It is late, probably past midnight. The scientists have a regular schedule, everything is regulated carefully. They will probably return in a few hours to start another phase in testing.

But the twins are alone for the moment. Pietro leans back against the wall, his shoulder pressed against Wanda's. She likes that, he knows. She likes a physical presence, a touch. So, when they have time together, Pietro stays as close to her as he can. A touch is like a tether, she's told him. It is something real in a world where not everything seems that way anymore.

_"Okay what is it?"_ Pietro gives up trying to speak in English, he doesn't care. _"What day did I forget this time?"_

_"It's our birthday, you dummy."_ Wanda says, reverting to their native language as well. And then there is that sound again. A light, tittering laugh. But it only lasts for a moment, like the sound hurts to make. And it probably does.

Pietro is suddenly excited, an emotion he hasn't felt in too long. _"What time is it?"_ he asks, the fact now becoming important.

_"Just a moment,"_ Wanda says, through a smile that is appearing on her face. Pietro likes to see that, his sister's smile. It isn't something he sees very often as of late. He wants to make it stay.

_"Come on, Wanda!"_ he says, with a smile of his own. _"Is it time yet?"_

He remembers, back before everything changed, how the two of them would go through this very same ritual, every year on their birthday. Standing for what seemed like hours, staring at the little clock on the wall in the kitchen. It was the one day of the whole year when their parents let them stay up past midnight. Pietro remembers how they would fight over the position closest to the clock, right under where it hung. Wanda would reach up at it, still too small to have anything but the tips of her fingers brush the bottom. But she would try anyway, hoping that _maybe_ if she could _just_ reach the numbers that time would go a little faster. Or maybe that if she could reach the clock, time would just _skip over_ her brother for once. Then she'd get to be the oldest, if only for a moment.

But then Pietro would be behind her, grabbing her hands and pulling them away. He was taller, he could already reach the numbers. Laughing, a quick and loud type of laughter, but long and genuine, he would cover up the hands of the clock, so his sister couldn't see the time.

Wanda would whine her brother's name, _"Pietro!",_ but she wouldn't really mean it. And their parents would be looking on in the background, sleepy but together, and smiling too. Every year this happened, and none of the four were tired of it, though they all would complain about it every other day of the year. But not that night. That night, it was okay. They were together. They were a family. And things were good.

Wanda is concentrating now. There is the ghost of a smile spread across her lips. Pietro watches her, the pinkish-red light slowly forming around her fingers as a fine mist.

Her abilities, her _powers_ were getting stronger every day, with each new test the scientists performed on her. Pietro knew his own powers were improving as well. At times when they were separated, he would lay a hand over his chest, or put a finger to his neck. He could feel his heartbeat, much faster than it should be, feeling like the rapid-fire of a machine gun.

The red misty light snakes from Wanda's fingertips and floats towards the window that separated the two of them from the rest of the laboratory. Pietro knows that this took immense concentration, even the smallest distraction would shatter her focus. So he stays quiet, looking on as the light made its way across the room, Wanda's fingers coaxing it, moving jerkily like a spastic piano player's.

Pietro wonders how he could forget his own birthday. But then again, it was hard to tell the days' passage while stuck in the facility. He didn't actually know how long they'd been there. Weeks, months? He didn't know.

Wanda knew though. Perhaps she had found out during one of the testing sessions. The scientists were trying to get her to stretch the limits of her power. Pietro had seen her lift small objects, building blocks and children's toys, with her mind. Telekinesis, the scientists called it. Being able to move things using the mind.

But the scientists were not satisfied with that. They wanted more. They wanted her to move _thoughts_. To play God with the mind itself.

And to them, it was nothing. They had already played God enough with them, what's pushing it a bit more going to do?

Pietro remembers the first time they did it, when he and his sister had first volunteered for this. She had been strapped down to a gurney, wheeled away to another room, the metal doors slamming behind. Pietro had gone first. _He was older, it was only right,_ he'd argued. He knew it wasn't safe, but there was no way that he would let something go wrong because Wanda had gone first. If he went first, Wanda would see that he was fine, and only then would he allow her to go.

His thoughts had been a blur, barely registering the slam of the doors, that his sister was now missing. He was in a cell, the one with a glass wall, the door shut and locked. A faint blue light sparkled into view. He tried to take a step, but took ten instead, his muscles not working like he wanted them to. He'd slammed into the wall over and over, trying to make it stop. _Make. Everything. Stop. It's too fast. Too. Fast. Make it stop make it stop make it stop._

When a scream came from another room, it all _did_ stop.

_"Wanda!"_ he screamed, the words leaving his mouth too quickly. Everything is too quick.

The screams didn't stop, and neither did he. Over and over, he slammed into the glass. It was unyielding, and he didn't care. He couldn't have stopped even if he wanted to. _"Wanda! WANDA!"_ screaming her name every time he hit the wall. Screaming until his throat hurt.

They were hurting her, and it was what they signed up for, but he didn't care about that either. He didn't remember exactly what they had done to him, and he wondered if he had screamed. If his sister had done the same thing he was doing then.

Everything had still been a blur, it all moving too fast. But the doors wouldn't open fast enough. When they finally did open, his sister was wheeled back out.

She had looked too still, strapped to the gurney. Pietro hadn't moved, didn't want to miss anything in the blue blur that his mind had become. But he lost sight of his sister when she was moved out of the field of vision that the glass offered.

_No no no no no no no no._ The word had played over and over in Pietro's head. _No. No, she has to be okay. I went first. She has to be okay._

As soon as the scientists had left that first night, Pietro has broken the lock on his cell door. Whatever they had done to him had given him new strength, it had been easy.

He did the same on the next door over, leading to the room next to his.

And Wanda had been there.

He had run up to her, too fast as a blue blur, barely stopping before barreling her over.

And they had both cried, Pietro running his fingers through her hair over and over, and Wanda clinging to his shirt, arms wrapped tight around his waist, the fabric bunching up in her hands. 

They didn't have to tell each other that everything was okay, that they were both alive. They were together, and that mattered more.

On that first night, they found out what they could do. Pietro was too fast, and Wanda told him that he had been quiet. He had been too quiet behind the metal doors, and she had feared for him just as much as he did for her.

Wanda wasn't fast, Pietro had learned. She was odd, weird. A red light flashed in her eyes, and it hurt, but she could move the light, and move things with it.

On that first night, Pietro felt something else, _someone_ else, in his mind for the first time.

His sister could get in his head with her red light.

She could read the thoughts of the scientists experimenting on them. They didn't know the extent of what she could do. She had told him that she couldn't keep it up for long, and hardly even brushed their consciousnesses. They couldn't feel it unless she probed deeper, and she only tried that with her brother. And he could feel it.

So they kept up the mental connection. Pietro worried every time he couldn't feel his sister in his mind. It was a curious feeling, having another presence in your thoughts. It felt like the sensation of finally remembering something you had forgotten, except it lasted for longer, for however long Wanda was in his head. And when the connection had to be severed, each time the scientists took her away, the feeling was the same way that it felt in his mind when he was trying so hard to remember something, but just couldn't. The severed connection left a hole in his consciousness, a feeling like something was missing, even though it had been only a short time since they began sharing minds.

But the connection always started back up the second Wanda came back. Pietro would think as loud as he could, _Are you okay? What did they do to you? Are you hurt? Are you okay?_

Pietro doesn't want to think about the past anymore, as the red light floats slowly through the window, like the barrier isn't there at all. But he glances over at Wanda, who still concentrates on moving the light, and Pietro still hasn't figured out why she was doing that. He looks at her hands, her fingers contouring up and down, moving the red mist. Wanda has bandages wrapped around her hands. Pietro hates how much the scientists hurt his sister. He isn't hurt by the experiments, not after the first time. They've made him stronger, able to withstand the pain that would come from the seemingly hundreds of needles stabbed into his skin and muscles. He is hurt _after_ the experimentation. Physically, when he is tired, _exhausted_ all the time, and hungry, more starving than he had ever been, even when orphaned on the streets. Mentally, when everything is moving too fast, even when he isn't. Emotionally, he is hurt when Wanda is taken after him, _he always goes first,_ and he has to her her screams. She feels all the pain that he doesn't. And that hurts him more than any physical pain ever could.

_"I'm trying..."_ Wanda says through clenched teeth, _"to find out the time."_

_"Don't hurt yourself,"_ Pietro says. Before everything changed, Wanda would have responded with something like, _"Oh, you_ do _care!",_ but now, she just nods and goes back to moving the mist.

_"One of the scientists just came into the room behind the metal doors,"_ Wanda says. Pietro isn't sure how she knows, just that her power, the red misty light, lets her know somehow. _"The man with only one glass lens."_

_"A monocle,"_ Pietro tells her, remembering the old adventure novels he used to read. Evil villains, mad scientists, and rich barons were all characters that wore monocles. Pietro thought it was funny, kind of cliche actually, that the scientist that seemed to be the head of the project wore one of these. Wanda huffs at him though.

_"Maybe he can tell me..."_ Wanda starts, and Pietro watches the movement of her hands, and realizes what she is about to do a moment before she does it.

_"No! Don't go in his head!"_ Pietro grabs his sister's hands. The mist disappears and the red light fades from Wanda's eyes.

_"What? Wh-"_ Even as she's asking Wanda realizes the answer.

_"He would know that you were there. And that you're able to do more than they know."_ Pietro is facing her now, still on the floor by the wall. Both her hands are in his and he holds them gently, not wanting to hurt what cuts and scars are beneath the bandages.

_"But your birthday, the time-"_ Wanda looks at him, her eyes huge.

_"_ Our _birthday,"_ Pietro corrects her, _"And it doesn't matter about the time. We're both still here, we've gotten through another year. That's what's important."_

There is a clanging sound from further in the facility. The twins both look up at once, and they know that they don't have much longer in the quiet.

_"I have to go,"_ Pietro says. He gets up, wanting to make it slow, but he is suddenly at the door in a blue blur.

"Didn't see that coming, did you?" Wanda says to him, in English. It has become her brother's sort of catchphrase, and she mocks it whenever she can. Pietro laughs, a breathy and short laugh, and starts to head out the door. They can't stay together, or the scientists would find out that Wanda can unlock the doors with her mind. They had since replaced the ones that Pietro broke on their first night.

_"Happy birthday, Wanda."_ Pietro says, as he stands in the doorway. It will probably be hours before they see each other again.

_"And happy birthday to you too, Pietro."_ Wanda says back.

_"We may not know what time it is, but I do know one thing,"_ Pietro says, a grin spreading across his face.

Wanda says, _"What?",_ even though she already knows what's coming.

_"I am twelve minutes older than you!"_ Pietro says as he zips back to the room next to hers. In the blur of blue, he hears Wanda laughing, a real and genuine laugh.

And that's just what he wanted to hear.

Wanda's laugh, that sound of happiness, even among all the bad was something he liked to, he _had to_ keep with him. Sometimes, it was the only thing that kept him going.

Pietro tried to keep a brave face, for Wanda. _He was older,_ he wasn't _supposed_ to get scared. _He was older,_ he wasn't _supposed_ to cry.

When they were awake and together, Pietro hid it. He kept up a brave face. He was the one who comforted Wanda when _she_ was scared, when _she_ cried.

Pietro knew that it couldn't be the other way around.

But he also knew that his sister already knows what he hides.

She would have found out even before they signed on for the experiments. You can't hide nightmares from someone you are with through the night.

Pietro and Wanda were alone on the streets of Sokovia, after the bombings.

They were never _truly_ alone, they had each other, but it _feels_ that way, after one loses so much.

Pietro had saved Wanda. And he doesn't ever let _that thought_ come even close to crossing his mind.

The _what if._

But he can't control what his mind makes up at night.

It started after everything had changed, after the bombs. Neither Pietro nor Wanda had slept in the days following what had happened. But they had to eventually.

He and Wanda had been in their first orphanage, one of the nicer ones, since the government had taken pity on the children found suddenly without parents because of the shells. Pietro had been separated from his sister, forced to sleep in another room, since boys and girls had to be kept apart, even with siblings.

He had been put in a bed that was barely big enough for him, his ten year old body still growing quickly, so he was almost too tall for it. Pietro had been too tired to argue too much (he still had, though, before stumbling onto the floor from exhaustion) with the warden about being separated from Wanda. His sister had assured him that she would be okay, and Pietro promised her, swore up and down that the first thing he would do once he woke up would be to go and see her. Satisfied with that, the twins had both gone to sleep.

Pietro was out before he had even touched the mattress. He had been awake for two (or was it three? He didn't care or remember) days straight. He had been staring at the undetonated bomb in the apartment for two days straight. The paint on the side spelled out one word: _Stark._ It was forever seared into his memory.

None of what had happened seemed real. It hadn't really _registered_ in his head. Maybe all that had happened was just a dream, and he would wake up with everything fine, the way it was supposed to be. Pietro would wake up and go get breakfast tomorrow morning, stealing Wanda's spoon for his cereal, as usual.

But the nightmares were what made it real.

Everything replayed in his head while he slept. It played over and over. Just as it had happened, exactly. Later, his mind would change the scenario, in just the smallest ways, and it would be even more horrifying. Later, he would see the _what if._ But that first night, it had been enough exactly how it had happened to be horrifying. 

The hole, the _big hole_ swallowing the ground, opening out of nowhere. And their parents were suddenly _gone._ They had all just been having dinner half a second ago, how could they be _gone?_

It had happened so fast, Pietro hadn't even realized that it was a shell that hit their home. He hadn't heard the explosion, wasn't even sure if there had been one.

There was just a hole in the floor, and his parents had been eaten by it.

And they were gone.

Pietro only realized later that they never got to say goodbye.

There was so much confusion. He had no idea what just happened. Wanda, he had looked to her, had no idea what happened. They had been blown back by the blast. The walls had cracked, the ceiling was gaping to a sky filled with dust.

The room where they had been eating dinner had suddenly become a pile of rubble.

And Pietro didn't know why.

He hadn't thought. He hadn't thought that his parents were dead. He didn't think about anyone besides Wanda. All he knew was that this was dangerous, and he had to keep his sister safe. _He was the oldest,_ it was what he was supposed to to. It was his job.

The walls had been blown out, a thick, white dust still in the air. With only his job in his mind, Pietro had grabbed his sister, and rolled under the bed that was in the room with no more walls.

Wanda hadn't said anything, neither of them had. The white dust covered Wanda's face, made it chalky. Wet lines ran through the chalk on her face, where the tears had spilled out of her eyes. She had told him later that she didn't know why she was crying. She hadn't known that their parents and many, many more in their home country were dead. She was ten years old, Pietro too. It was scary, and she was crying because it was scary.

And then the second shell hit.

Pietro was sure another hole would open in the floor. That this time, it would be him and Wanda that would be eaten.

The whole apartment shook. Cracks appeared in the ceiling, threatening the rest of it to come crashing down on top of them. Being under the bed would not offer much protection.

Pietro had his arms around Wanda. She was curled up tight against him, her hands around her head, stiff, her nails digging into the back of her skull. Her knees were pulled up against her chest, and Pietro had felt her breathing against him; rapid, quick breaths in succession over and over like a panic.

He kept waiting for the end to come. But it doesn't. They were both still there. Alive, somehow. Wanda's breathing had still been rough and ragged and quick, while Pietro hadn't moved at all. He couldn't remember how the time had passed, slowly or quickly. But it did pass.

Pietro hadn't slept at all, neither had Wanda. But they come out of a sort of stupor when there is a shift in the bricks.

People were trying to rescue them.

Pietro had wanted to shout at them, warn them that there was still a shell, but his voice wouldn't work. He was too choked on the dust and rubble, and even without that, he would have been too scared to speak.

The dreams Pietro had on the first night in the orphanage were like someone had recorded them the whole time, he was seeing everything like he wasn't the one experiencing it, but watching from the sidelines. He was a bystander, and there was nothing he could do to change what was happening.

And with this, he saw the truth.

That his and Wanda's parents were eaten by the shell.

He saw all the hours, _days_ that he and Wanda were trapped under the bed.

He saw the shell, just _waiting_ to go off and kill them both.

And all this had just been the start of his nightmares.

Wanda had woken him up after the first night, wondering why he hadn't come to see her yet. She had found him, not screaming like from night terrors, but whimpering, quietly, like he had wanted no one to notice. She had found him shaking and unable to stop, like a involuntary convulsion.

All the boys of the orphanage had lost their parents, in bombings or otherwise. Pietro wasn't the only one with nightmares. But they all had anger, and the nightmares were a weakness they could use to get rid of that rage. Pietro didn't let it show that the other children bothered him, at least to Wanda. He had to be strong for her. But after one too many fights with the other boys, Pietro had to leave, Wanda along with him.

They didn't stay in any orphanage for long. Pietro and Wanda spent more time on the streets than in any home. They struggled to get by, and Pietro always put Wanda before himself.

He couldn't hide the nightmares from her though.

When they would sleep in alleyways, tucked in close together for warmth, he would shake again, quietly. He never screamed, Wanda would tell him later. But it was even sadder somehow, she thought.

Wanda had nightmares too, of course, but not nearly as often. Hardly a night passed by where Pietro wouldn't be woken up by his sister. He had asked her to wake him if she felt him shaking. He had said that it was better to have less sleep than to suffer through what he saw while he slept. When he couldn't sleep, he kept watch over his sister. He wouldn't let anything or anyone hurt her. When she had nightmares, _she_ screamed. She screamed like she was being attacked, screamed like a murder. It was the worst sound Pietro could hear, and it sliced into his heart like a blade. They spent many nights awake through it all, wide-eyed and alert, neither one wanting to sleep.

In his cell, Pietro hears another clanging sound from deeper in the facility. He thinks there might be some time before the scientists come in. Perhaps he could sleep for a bit before he was woken up, by nightmares or the scientists coming to take him before his sister. He was always _so tired._

_He was older, it was only fair._

It was only fair that he had the nightmares. It was so Wanda wouldn't have any.

It was his job to protect her. She didn't have anyone to protect, so she had less to lose.

_That was only right._

Pietro would gladly suffer if that means that Wanda wouldn't have to.

He would go first, _always._

_So she wouldn't have to._

He would suffer through nightmares

Nightmares were the _what if_ is _what if I wasn't fast enough?_

_What if I couldn't save her?_

He would suffer through all of this so that maybe, when this is all over, Wanda would be happy one day.

It was his job.

_He was older, it was only right._


End file.
